We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school…Bruce Springsteen – No Surrender

It’s True We Make a Better Day Just You & Me

Instead of going on and on about contributions to music I will simply say this. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Ray Charles & Michael Jackson helping. Doesn’t happen much anymore. It’s a beautiful sentiment & perhaps it’s not a bad thing wanting to get artists together to give back. I’m no preacher, this is no soapbox, but I do feel like there is a bit of an opportunity here to remember that with all the news of economic disasters, Celebrity death watch 2009, Revolution that there is music. To paraphrase a quote from Field of Dreams:

Ray, people will listen Ray. They’ll turn up their radios not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll listen as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll listen to beautiful music and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will listen, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been Music. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But music has marked the time. These artists, these chords: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will listen, Ray. People will most definitely listen.

I hope you do listen. Listen to music & feel it in your soul. Feel the joy of a melody and let the beauty of music fill your life with unending joy. This may sound slightly hippieish, but to me music has saved me on numerous occasions. Here are two charities that are dear to my heart. Give if you can, if you can’t then don’t, but this is my attempt to give something to help someone other than myself.